Committee for Children Blog

Sam’s Story

Parents and teachers who are intimidated at the thought of teaching young children about personal safety will be reassured by the simple approach in Sam's Story, by Molly Anderson, in which a little girl learns two very basic touching rules (fRead More

Five Rs of Returning After Winter Break

By Joy Brooke

I hope having winter break off from school allowed you and your students to experience the important three Rs: rest, relaxation, and rejuvenation. Even though for some returning to school is the best thing, for others it may cause some students and yes, even some teachers the Winter Break Blues. Spring break is far away, and in most cases, the winter days are shorter and darker. These blues can create long tedious days unless we choose…Read More

Garfield High student sues school district over hazing suspension

http://q13fox.com/2014/01/14/garfield-high-student-sues-school-district-over-hazing-suspension/#axzz2qUbhN5RqRead More

Holiday Cheer

The holiday season is upon us, for better or for worse. I would like to talk about the “for worse” part, if only to help us all cross over to the “for better” side of things. Every year I talk with friends and acquaintances who are gearing up for the holidays (or any family gathering) by gritting their teeth and rolling their eyes. The plan, for many, is to just get through it. Of course I recognize that no amount of Pollyanna-ing is going to make a tense family dynamic easy. But I do think we adults often miss a great opportunity to make it a little easier. That opportunity, in many cases, is right under our noses.Read More

Partner Reading for SEL

Partner reading is great time to reinforce the Second Step skill of following directions, including when to listen and when to speak, two very important social and emotional skills for every day use and academic success.Read More

Impact of Exposure to Sexually Explicit and Exploitive Materials

As electronic information sharing increases, parents must consider that their child may be exposed to sexually explicit and inappropriate content and the impact these materials may have on youth and adolescents. Read More

Public affairs radio show interviews Committee for Children

On November 24, 2013, Clear Channel Media and Entertainment aired a half-hour radio interview with Committee for Children's Executive Director Joan Cole Duffell and PR and Communications Manager Allison Schumacher. They discussed our work in social-emotional learning, bullying prevention, and child abuse prevention.

[Listen…Read More

Want to Sharpen SEL Skills? Have Them Write Their Feelings

“THE END,” “and then I went home,” and “it was fun” are all endings students use in their writing way too often. Encouraging children to identify their feelings can be a great mini-lesson during writing workshops and a teaching point during a one-on-one writing conferences with a student. If we are truly creating a socially and emotionally sound classroom, and especially if we are teaching the Second Step curriculum, we can integrate “identifying feelings” into our writing instruction to increase our students’ social-emotional learning throughout the day.Read More

Social Skills… They Last a Lifetime

I recently had the opportunity to attend a six-day professional development workshop about leadership and coaching which, as advertised, was designed to provide participants with skills to become more effective in their work. It quickly became evident that a specific set of behaviors was expected to maximize the workshop experience. At the beginning of each day, the trainer reviewed the norms for working together: Be respectful, listen while others are speaking, respectfully disagree, follow directions, and stay on task. This was not unusual to me, as the expectations were similar to other workshops I’ve attended. It made sense that a common set of ground rules were needed for working together successfully.Read More